A survey of recent structures being developed in the life assurance market might suggest that you have stepped back into the Renaissance period, with alchemists seeking to turn debt into capital, or even the period of the flat-earthers, moaning that travelling too far can only result in falling off the edge of the world.
However, the Financial Groups Directive, the Basel II reforms and the decline in equity values have produced seekers of regulatory capital and seekers of Linnaean nomenclature to define the solutions emanating from the laboratory.
